Catholic League president William Donohue commented today on Larry Flynt’s decision to run for governor of California:

“Flynt has missed his calling—he should run where he might win.  In Hollywood.  After all, given his record, there are too many Catholics—especially Hispanics—in the state for him to dissuade.  For example, Flynt has been accused by his own daughter of sexually molesting her from before she was 10; he foisted pornography on her to desensitize her.  She has also accused him of whipping her with a black leather belt and of molesting her sisters.

“In 1988, Flynt’s animus against Jerry Falwell led him to create an ad that showed Falwell discussing how his first sexual encounter occurred while he was drunk with his mother in an outhouse.  In 1997, in an ad display for a movie about him, actor Woody Harrelson was shown wearing a stars-and-stripes loin cloth with his arms outstretched as if crucified, over the groin of a bikini-clad woman.  When he addressed a crowd at Georgetown University in 1999, Flynt went on a rampage against the Catholic Church, saying, ‘The Church has had its hand on our crotch for 2,000 years.’  The late Michael Kelly also charged Flynt with racism and the degradation of women.  In this regard, nothing beats the cover of Hustler that showed a woman being put through a meat grinder.

“Flynt is championed by the left for his devotion to free speech.  That they cannot distinguish between what Madison meant by this—political discourse—and child pornography, does not seem to matter to those committed to sexual engineering.  Their hero—Flynt—is adored not so much for his exercise of free speech but for the content of his expression.  In short, he is lionized for being the Sultan of Smut.

“Flynt says he has chosen to run for governor of California because it is ‘the most progressive state in the union.’  That may be, but it has nothing on the home of Tim Robbins, Sarandon, Hef, Babs and Cher.  He would be well advised to declare his candidacy for Mayor of Hollywood.”

San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors will soon decide whether to curtail the free-speech rights of prolife protesters.  Currently, before the police can cite demonstrators for harassment, women seeking an abortion must inform protesters to cease their expression; alternatively, women must instruct them that they want to be left alone.  Under the proposed new law, the onus is on the protesters: they must first get the consent of women seeking an abortion before exercising their free-speech rights.

Catholic League president William Donohue offered the following remarks today:

“This is a textbook case of how extremists operate in the U.S.  If they can’t defeat their ideological adversaries in the court of public opinion, they reach for censorship.  The idea that protesters must first obtain permission from those whom they seek to persuade is preposterous; if it passes, it will no doubt be struck down by the courts.  That this is happening in San Francisco—home of violent pacifists—makes the story even more ironic.

“The ACLU should have an interest in opposing this gag rule; we will contact them today.  At stake is not simply the right of prolife protesters, at stake is the right of all demonstrators.  But it does not surprise us that this proposed law is aimed most directly at Catholics and Protestants—anti-Christian legislation is becoming a national sport for fanatical secularists.”

Catholic League president William Donohue commented today on how movie reviewers assessed “The Magdalene Sisters”:

“Imagine an anti-Semitic director who admits he packed into one movie every anti-Semitic theme he could draw on and then gets an anti-Semitic duo to distribute it. Next imagine film critics taking the anti-Semitic propaganda at face value and then offering anti-Semitic remarks in their reviews. Fat chance. For example, there will never be a movie about Jewish slumlords in Harlem or Jewish managers of black entertainers in the 20th century. If there were, and if it were to present a wholly one-sided portrait of the worst excesses of how some Jews exploited blacks, the ADL would be up in arms. And rightly so. But luckily for Jews, this is not likely to happen. Catholics are not so lucky—they have to endure Catholic-bashing directors like Peter Mullan shopping his anti-Catholic script to anti-Catholic distributors like Harvey and Bob Weinstein, only to have it reviewed by anti-Catholic critics. Here are some of today’s reviews:

· “Mullan has been criticized for condensing the extreme abuses of asylums into an overloaded melodrama, and he does, but I don’t fault him for it.” “The whole system was sadistic and indefensible, and the church…deserves the scorn that Mullan and his fine cast heap on it.” (New York Daily News)
· “For some, the asylums were like a roach motel—girls checked in, but they never checked out, except 40 or 50 years later, in a pine box.” (San Francisco Chronicle)
· “Mullan transcends genre labeling by delving into the ways in which moral fascism debases its practitioners as it lays bare the human limitations of its intended converts.” (Newsday)
· “You’ll walk away amazed at the heartlessness of the people running the asylums and wondering how such a gruesome practice could have existed into the late 20th century.” (New York Post)

“These reviewers have a deep-seated need to believe the worst about the Catholic Church. They’re the ones who need to check into the asylum.”